The invention relates generally to a system for promoting purchases in customer accounts such as credit card accounts, department store accounts and other consumer purchase transactions, with associated data processing.
Credit card firms such as Visa and MasterCard, automobile manufacturers, rental car companies, department stores, long distance telephone companies, financial institutions and other organizations have offered a number of different programs for promoting purchases of goods or services. These have included discount offers for certain catalog items, based on volume of activity in an account. Other promotional schemes have involved discounts on other goods or services, different from those purchased in the account. For example, discount coupons have been offered for airline tickets, based on a minimum level of investment in a bank or savings and loan. Similarly, holders of Visa cards have been offered deeply discounted or free air travel based on a certain level of activity using a general purpose charge card, or have been credited with air miles based on activity in a charge card account.
The following U.S. Patents have general pertinence to the present invention: Leon U.S. Pat. No. 4,742,457, Musmanno U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,346,442, 4,376,978, 4,597,046 and 4,774,663, Lucas U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,640, Brachtel U.S. Pat. No. 4,755,940, and Durbin U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,842. These patents relate to investment plans, allocation of investment funds among different investments and accounts, differing in liquidity and term; data processing and computerization of investment plans and electronic funds transfers, security of funds transfer arrangements and indexing of interest rates for deposit accounts. In particular, the Leon patent discloses a system for adjusting for inflation in deposit accounts and loan funds, with associated automated data processing.
Another investment offering having some relevance to the present invention is Citibank's CITI Credit Card Fund, "units" of which are sold to the public through brokers. Like a type of revenue bond, the investment guarantees a fixed rate of return. Citibank uses the invested funds to finance the purchases and cash advances of its credit card customers, and the customer's investments are secured by the card account receivables, at 100+%.
It is an object of this invention to provide a system for enabling a marketer of goods or services, a general purpose credit card firm such as Visa or MasterCard, or another similarly situated entity to offer an attractive incentive to customers toward use of a general purpose credit card, the purchase of goods, the purchase of services, or other financial activity which costs the offering entity far less than promotional schemes or arrangements conventionally used; and it is a related object to offer a consumer an attractive and safe investment opportunity in return for the purchase of goods and services.